Black as the pupil of an eye, sucking at light
like the pupil of an eye, I love you, far-sighted night.
Give me the voice to sing of you, godmother of every hymn,
you in whose hand lie the bridles of the four winds.
Calling on you, extolling you, I am no more than
a shell where the sea-swell goes on roaring.
Night! I have looked long enough into human eyes.
Now, emblaze me, make ash of me, black-sun-night!
Черная, как зрачок, как зрачок, сосущая
Свет — люблю тебя, зоркая ночь.
Голосу дай мне воспеть тебя, о праматерь
Песен, в чьей длани узда четырех ветров.
Клича тебя, славословя тебя, я только
Раковина, где еще не умолк океан.
Ночь! Я уже нагляделась в зрачки человека!
Испепели меня, черное солнце — ночь!
«I don’t know if you’re dead or still living, / If I should seek you on earth, or alas, / Sitting pensively, in the evening, / Warmly grieve for the one who has passed. All to you: Daily prayer and thought, / And insomnia’s feverish rise, / The white flock of the poems I wrote, / A...»
«I don't know if you're alive or dead. / Can you on earth be sought, / Or only when the sunsets fade / Be mourned serenely in my thought? All is for you: the daily prayer, / The sleepless heat at night, / And of my verses, the white / Flock, and of my eyes, the blue fire. No-one was mor...»
«I'll leave your quiet yard and your white house — / Let life be empty and with light complete. / I'll sing the glory to you in my verse / Like not one woman has sung glory yet. / And that dear girlfriend you remember / In heaven you created for her sight, / I'm trading product that is ...»
«I have not heard the tales of Ossian, / I have not tasted age-old wine — / why then do I seem to see a field / and Scotland's murderous moon? And in the sinister silence I seem to hear / the roll-call of the raven and the harp, / and, streaming in the wind, the scarves of men-at-arms / ...»